Grieving The Death of Your Extraordinary Life

Recently, I found myself swimming in grief so strong over losing the extraordinary life I had planned, I felt like I was being pulled under. Thankfully, those strong waves of paralyzing depression only lasted a week because I’ve learned how to pull myself up from the abyss. I believe in feeling my emotions, but not letting them drag me into hopelessness. This week, the current of despair pulled me farther than I wanted to go and I was drowning.

Thankfully, friends I didn’t even know I had started sharing their stories with me. They didn’t sugarcoat the reality of this dreaded disease, but they were able to calm the waters of my troubled mind so I could see that land definitely was in the distance.

I want to encourage you (from someone else’s encouragement to me) that it’s okay to feel. In fact, I have a little saying I like to use. “Feel, deal, heal.” Just don’t get stuck.

I want to leave you with this encouragement I got from a friend who’s walking this road ahead of me.

“Take the time to grieve the time of life lost, important not to bury it. It festers and is harder later to deal with. In grief share, they teach to accept and work through thoughts and feelings, process them…Overall just step by step, and face life with God.”

So that is what I’m doing. I’m taking the time to greive the loss of the life I had planned, as I recreate my new extraordinary life with my mom.